New Integrity: The Mogul and the Writer look towards 'Post-8'

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

The Mogul and the Writer look towards 'Post-8'

The mogul (Tom Hunter, co-organiser of Live8 in Edinburgh):

We hear from the G8 leaders that they are making “signals” on trade relaxation. Signals don’t feed nations. Signals don’t allow the poor to step on that first rung of development – change does.

Change the laws on trade, change the world forever. Don’t get me wrong, the G8 has come a long, long way but it is still not anywhere near changing things for the better for the weakest people in our world.

By our Prime Minister’s own admission we now have the hope that global poverty can be eradicated. So let’s use that hope and actually translate it into action. Let’s help the poorest who don’t quite benefit from this historic agreement at the G8 in Gleneagles.

And let me ask again: why 2010, why not now? We have the money, we have the solutions, we have the democratic will – why not now? Why do we need to wait for five years? Why wait for trade negotiations when we know what is right and what is wrong?

Scotland and the world stood up and said: “No more extreme poverty.” It’s clear that the politicians heard that plea, but now they need to give us the plan. The plan that will deliver us from the evil we visit upon our fellow humans.

Give the poor the drugs, the humanity, the money and the freedom to trade that they so richly deserve; to free themselves.

Africa will stand on its own two feet, but only if we remove it from the quicksand that the countries of the world have collectively made for it.

The time is now over for promises and for G8 rhetoric. Action now is the only thing that will count for the newborn of Africa.

The writer (Alison Kennedy):

So the riot got the front pages and the politicians were let off the hook. And the G8 haven’t delivered. And while Gleneagles was still drowning in police, including the Met, bombs went off in London. So should we give up, let violence breed violence, keep our heads down, go back to sleep?

Well, nobody sane suggested the G8 would crumble immediately, that next week there would be a new world, that spin and corporate greed and media complicity were going to disappear overnight. But we have the choice to try for a new world every day, to tell what we know of the truth every day, to take small actions every day. Millions of people taking even small actions every day – that does change the world.

Of course, people can be greedy, fearful, self-interested, willfully ignorant, vicious and worse. Of course, that has political effects, nobody ever doubts it. But people can also be generous, altruistic, powerful, ingenious, fast-moving and humane. And that also has political effects. Don’t ever doubt it.

Posted by Pat Kane on July 11, 2005 at 12:09 AM | Permalink

The comments to this entry are closed.

New Integrity

B.more, @ Play, in The Net

About

What we're reading

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories

November 2006

July 11, 2005

The Mogul and the Writer look towards 'Post-8'

Comments